


Here, beneath my lungs

by alice_pike



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 09:06:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alice_pike/pseuds/alice_pike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The house is quaint and crooked and they can hear the wind catch on the missing tiles on the roof, its windows honey-colored and welcoming in the gathering twilight.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>It feels like home.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here, beneath my lungs

**Author's Note:**

> Because Radical Face's _Welcome Home, Son_ has ruined me, and I just want them to have a happy ending, goddammit.
> 
> LJ post [here](http://alice-pike.livejournal.com/165256.html). Tumblr post [here.](http://eroticallycodependent.tumblr.com/post/57330622346)

They buy a house.

It's small, and definitely in need of a lot of work; but there's a big yard for Max and it's got over fifteen acres of pasture in the back. They're miles away from the nearest shop and the driveway is going to be a bitch in the winter, but the pastures slope away to the west and light up like gold when the sun sets. 

It's far from perfect.

They both love it.

 

They spend most of one day just exploring the land, coming across a stream in a dug-out little valley near the perimeter fence, finding the remains of an orchard behind the farthest hill. There are just a couple of trees and some moldy crates, and they sit on the overgrown grass munching on bittersweet apples while Max runs in circles around them. 

They don't talk much, but that's not so different. 

_"I already know,"_ Chuck had told him once, and that hasn't changed, either. 

They walk back through the fields with the sun setting behind them, casting their shadows far across the land. 

The house is quaint and crooked and they can hear the wind catch on the missing tiles on the roof, its windows honey-colored and welcoming in the gathering twilight.

It feels like home.

 

There's only one bedroom but it is fitted with a king and they make do. Privacy has been an illusion for years, and while they always had separate rooms on base, somewhere only their own to escape to, neither of them feels the loss of that too strongly. 

Chuck thinks that maybe they have spent too much time already hiding behind walls.

 

They don't have to work, of course—honorable discharges and a pension each that is frankly ridiculous and they are set for life. It's a strange thought, and they don't vocalize it— _this is our life now_ —but the reality of it falls effortlessly around them, creeps into the corners of the house and settles there like it belongs.

They keep busy. Chuck fixes up the roof and Herc builds an arbor, thinks maybe about grapes to add to their modest garden. Chuck fixes the plumbing and Herc fixes the wiring, and there are a million other little things to do before the weather turns.

They work together, easy in each other's space, and they fall asleep together, even easier. 

 

The prospect of a _life_ was something neither of them had ever anticipated, and shedding the discipline of the military and the constant fear of the apocalypse is not easy. It's not easy, but it happens—in bits and pieces, in sudden shifts. 

Chuck still has nightmares and Herc can still feel them: Half a decade of drifting and neither of them have a mind to call solely their own anymore. Chuck jerks in his sleep and Herc is already waking up, reaching out to him, pulling Chuck out of it. 

"Dad?" Chuck asks, sounding out of breath and disoriented.

"Yeah, boy," Herc says. "I'm here," he tells him, and after a moment Herc can feel him slip back into sleep.

He follows.

Sometimes Herc will just _watch_ him, when he mows the lawn, when he throws a ball to Max in the yard. Chuck notices, of course, can feel his father's eyes on him as clearly as he can feel Herc in his head, but he doesn't say anything about it. They were never meant to get this, never supposed to get this chance, and Chuck doesn't blame his father for taking it.

If Herc is allowing himself the luxury of _having_ , of keeping, then Chuck will allow himself to be had, to be kept. 

 

They get animals, slowly, and after that they get visitors: Raleigh and Mako most often, but Newt and Hermann stop by now and again, Tendo and Allison, too. They like the company, but a few days are days well spent and they prefer the silence that falls when it's just the two of them, when they are allowed to just _be_.

 

They gather pieces of themselves, collect the shards of each other and soften the edges, making something that fits together like it was always meant to be one. They forget what belonged to whom, whose memories keep them awake and whose memories make them smile; they tuck the pieces beneath their ribs where they can keep them, where they can no longer worry about loss.

If Chuck is clinging, it is because Herc is holding on too tight.

 

Anniversaries of the closing of the Breach are always busy, and they fly out to Hong Kong and Sydney for the fifth, give interviews and speeches, wear the mantle of war heroes like a second skin. 

But they have earned their peace, and for once there is something waiting for them on the other side.

"Let's go home," Herc says, sometime during the second week, in between publicity junkets and celebration dinners. 

Chuck looks up at him, a smile turning up the corners of his mouth. 

"Yeah," he agrees, softly, after a moment.

_"Home."_


End file.
